Monday, August 7, 2017
Northern states best for viewing eclipse
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Northern states best for viewing eclipseIn less than three weeks, great swaths of North America will get the rare opportunity to witness a solar eclipse. The best viewing in Mexico will be in northern border states. FULL STORY |
Volcano photo wins international prize Patience gave Sergio Tapiro 'a gift from nature' and National Geographic award
Volcano photo wins international prize
Patience gave Sergio Tapiro 'a gift from nature' and National Geographic award
A Mexican photographer has been named National Geographic magazine’s travel photographer of the year for a spectacular photograph of the Colima Volcano during an eruption.
It is the second award for Sergio Tapiro Velasco’s nighttime photo entitled The Power of Nature, in which lightning, ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls are seen atop the Volcano of Fire, as it is also known.
It won Tapiro third place in the 2016 World Press Photo competition.
His latest award comes after the photo “surged to the top of the nature photography category by unanimous consent,” said Molly Roberts, National Geographic’s senior photo editor and one of the judges.
“Sergio has focused his lens on the volcano for 15 years, and his masterful concentration is apparent in the beautiful image of the erupting volcano.”
That concentration helped give him the win over 15,000 contestants from 30 countries.
It was a cold December night in 2015 when Tapiro dragged his sleeping bag, camera and tripod outside and lay down beneath a cloudless sky, wrote National Geographic in its announcement of the award.
Then, 13 kilometers away, the Colima Volcano thundered to life.
By the time the first explosion occurred the photographer was already in motion, shooting a series of eight-second exposures as fire and rock were expelled from the Earth. And then came a massive lightning bolt, the biggest Tapiro has ever seen.
“This picture is a gift that nature has given to me,” Tapiro says. “When I saw the camera display I was shocked — I didn’t believe it.”
